This invention relates to a convenient, low cost modular device to be unobtrusively attached to any keyboard instrument which electronically captures musical note and note expression data; and a processing system to convert and transmit the data to computer-compatible interfaces thereby recording live musical performances.
Various inventions have been devised to assist musicians in performing, arranging, recording and composing music. An historically early method of recording music which is still in use today is the player piano. Holes, corresponding to particular notes, are punched in paper which is rotated as the player piano is played. Recording music with this technique requires an entirely different instrument than the piano or substantial adjustments to a conventional piano. U.S. Pat. No. 1,194,302, entitled "MUSIC RECORDER," to Liefield, discloses an extremely bulky electrical attachment which is capable of recording musical notes on a rotating sheet of paper to be applied to a conventional keyboard instrument. The device of this invention which attaches to the keyboard, however, covers more than half of the keyboard and thus interferes with a musician's efforts at the keyboard. U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,221, entitled, "PLAYER PIANO RECORDING SYSTEM," to Starnes et al, teaches a more modern recording system in which player piano tapes are prepared. This system requires the elaborate and delicate installation of photosensors to the underside of the piano keys. While the invention does not interfere with the musician's use of the keyboard, such installation of the apparatus to the keyboard is expensive and requires the services of a skilled piano tuner or electronics technician. This invention is furthermore limited in its application because the purpose of the invention is to create player piano tapes and not a musical score for immediate viewing by the musician. Another example of a musical recording system is given in U.S. Pat. No. 3,798,719, entitled "TAPE ACTIVATED PIANO AND ORGAN PLAYER," to Maillet, which again requires the elaborate installation of sensitive electronics to the underside of a keyboard, with the accompanying disadvantages of being costly and requiring skilled persons to render the invention useful. U.S. Pat. No. 3,905,267, entitled "ELECTRONIC PLAYER PIANO WITH RECORD AND PLAYBACK FEATURE," to Vincent, teaches an electronic data storage system including a magnetic type recorder/replayer for recording spontaneous musical presentations for replay through a similar instrument. To capture the musical data, the invention also requires extensive and expensive modifications to the underside of each key in the instrument. See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,023,456, entitled "MUSIC ENCODING AND DECODING APPARATUS," to Groeschel, for yet another example of how electronic switching to monitor keyboard action requires bulky circuitry and modification of the keyboard from within the instrument.
The sequencer is a viable alternative method of recording music which has been developed in the prior art, although early in its development, the sequencer was a massive network of electronics, often covering walls in a recording studio. Musicians are able to record and immediately play back music with the use of sequencers. A sequencer, in its simplest form, consists of a series of adjustable voltage memories stepped by a clock pulse. The typical analog sequencer uses potentiometers and variable resistors, each including a manually operable dial for establishing a certain DC voltage. In order to load the sequencer, the musician manually sets each potentiometer. Thereafter, the bank of potentiometers is scanned sequentially and the DC voltages are read to a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) which then produces the melody or the rhythm. The sequencer thus enables the musician to repeatedly listen to the melody and make changes by varying the potentiometer dials. Sequencers are used to create the familiar insistent machine-beat that has been used in electronic organs. See Keyboard Synthesizer Library, Vol. 3, Synthesizers and Computers, p. 37 (1985). While the sequencer produces the accompaniment, a musician can play the lead line of the same or another keyboard, or even another instrument.
With the advent of solid state electronics, smaller and more efficient electronics have been combined in the prior art to produce a digital sequencer. Typical digital sequencers utilize a Read/Write memory storing a plurality of words, each word being coded to represent a note played on the keyboard. Once the memory has been coded, the sequencer can be used to play the keyboard instrument by reading back the data words in the memory in time sequence. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,890,871, entitled, "APPARATUS FOR STORING SEQUENCES OF MUSICAL TONES," to Oberheim; U.S. Pat. No. 4,160,399, entitled, "AUTOMATIC SEQUENCE GENERATOR FOR A POLYPHONIC TONE SYNTHESIZER," to Deutsch; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,487,101, entitled "DIGITAL SOLID STATE RECORDING OF THE SIGNALS CHARACTERIZING THE PLAYING OF A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT," to Ellen. While providing an improved and efficient means of recording music, sequencers do not provide a written means of preservting music on musical score sheets. More importantly, however, sequencers require an electronic musical instrument and have not been adapted to conventional acoustic keyboard instruments, such as the piano.
The electronic music revolution has led to the invention of the synthesizer, an electronic musical instrument. Sequencers, as described above, have been incorporated into the synthesizer, so that while the musician plays music on a synthesizer keyboard, sequencers within the synthesizer plays back various accompaniments that the musician loaded previously into the sequencer. The use of sequencers allows the musician to compose and record various tracks of music. The electronic instruments generate musical data consisting of a series of binary digits, called bits. A number of digits representing a complete musical expression, such as which note has been played and the particular style, is called a data word. The words are then stored in a memory unit which can store only a finite number of these binary data words. The length of the recorded music, therefore, is limited by the amount of memory in the solid state chips used in digital sequencers. Microprocessor technology provides the means for storing lengthy sequences by transferring the digitized musical data stored in memory to peripheral devices such as computer diskettes. Examples of electronic musical instruments which incorporate microprocessor technology include the Ensoniq Mirage.TM., various Korg polyphonic synthesizers, and the Casio CZ 101.TM..
The computer, especially the personal home computer, further revolutionized the electronic music industry with the creation of software capable of interpreting the notes played on the keyboard and printing the music in musical scored form. The music industry desired a communication standard to be used among the multitude of electronic music manufacturers and the multitude of available home computers. The standard decided upon was MIDI, an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. In its simplest application, MIDI permits a musician to play two or more instruments from a single keyboard, in order to layer musical tone colors. In its most comprehensive application, MIDI provides the means for realizing a multi-track recorder or a computer-based composing system by connecting several instruments to a master controller or computer. Computer software is available, furthermore, which can transform the music from digital format to a conventional musical score, both on the computer screen and as printed out on paper in hard copy. Commercially available software which can convert MIDI data to scored music or to a format to be viewed on a computer terminal for editing purposes include the MIDI Performance Series.TM. by Passport, and the MPS.TM. written by Kentyn Reynolds for IBM-compatible personal computers.
The current limitation to the MIDI computer-musical interface is that it requires expensive and complex electronic musical instruments such as synthesizers or sequencers. MIDI was not designed to be adapted for the conventional non-electronic musical instrument, such as the piano. MIDI Retrofit Kits.TM. are currently available from Forte Music Company to accommodate acoustic pianos; however, these retrofit kits require extensive modification on the underside of the piano keys as has been described on some of the previous efforts to record keyboard music.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide an inexpensive, lightweight and unobtrusive device for the purpose of scoring and recording live music performances.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an electronic device which is both noninvasive, portable and convenient to attach to any keyboard instrument, and which does not require piano tuning or electronics expertise for proper installation of the keyboard sensing electronics to record and score music.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide modular keyboard devices which easily interconnect to span any size or length of any keyboard instrument for purposes of recording and scoring music.
Another object of the invention is to provide a modular keyboard device with simplified electronics and a minimal number of wires for sequential capture of key and key expression data.
Another object of the invention is provide a photosensitive method to detect which key is played and the velocity with which a particular key is struck, thus allowing for further musical expressions, such as staccato, legato, pianissimo, or fortissimo to be recorded simultaneously with the performance.
A further object of the present invention is to convert analog musical information into digital data compatible with a MIDI interface for ultimate recording and scoring with the use of a personal computer and appropriate software.
Other objects and further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description to follow, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing.